


The Beginning of Self-Destruction

by KDblack



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, It gets better before it gets worse, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2019-10-11 00:11:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17436149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Spend a few years trapped in purgatory with a bunch of strangers and they start to think they know you. Fuck that noise.(30 glimpses of Jake Park: ally, rival, opponent, victim, survivor.)





	1. Dwight

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I'm too busy with life to update any of my fics!  
> Also Me: 30 snippets of Outsider POV on Jake seems manageable, let's do it.

Dwight tried to like Jake. He really did. But Jake was – frustrating. He brought out the worst in people. Especially Dwight.

Meg was all right. Direct, serious, and awfully anxious to get home, but friendly enough. Claudette was even better, with her shy humour and endless plant trivia. After the initial burst of heart-stopping fear wore off, Dwight tried his best to get to know them. He kept them talking, theorizing, and working together over those first few weeks. At least, he assumed it had been weeks. Watches didn't work here and the sky never brightened. After the first day or so, they'd lost all track of time. The world narrowed down to the campfire and the trials. He and the girls spent as much time as they could huddling around the fire for warmth, trying to process what was happening to them. 

Between bursts of shock and terror, they'd traded stories about their lives and the people they needed to return to. Soon, Dwight knew Meg's mom and Claudette's parents as well as they knew his family. Jake, though... Jake stayed on the edge of their little circle, silent, and stared into the fire until the next trial began. Even when Dwight asked him directly, he refused to share anything about his life. When Jake bothered to talk, it was quiet and clipped, and he glared if you asked him to repeat himself. Too used to people hanging onto his every word.

No, that was unfair. Jake wasn't arrogant, per se. His brand of dismissive confidence just grated on Dwight's raw nerves.

The first time Jake broke cover to haul Dwight off a hook had settled their relationship. Dwight had been struggling to his feet, gasping out his thanks, when he made the mistake of looking up. Jake wasn't even facing his direction. Dwight's rescuer had his dark head tilted away, eyes staring unerringly into the trees. He hadn't been searching for the girls or keeping watch for the metal-studded giant who'd slashed Dwight's back open with a cleaver. He'd just been gazing into the woods with the same closed-off expression he wore around the campfire. The one that screamed 'I'd rather be anywhere but here.' 

In high school, Dwight would've killed to be friends with a boy like Jake. He should be beyond that as an adult. It was frustrating and humiliating to realize he wasn't. Almost a decade later and god knew how far away and he was still seeking out surly guys cooler than he was, hoping against hope that they'd listen when he talked. That they'd look at him, instead of through him. That they'd give him a chance.

All Jake ever gave him was a cool, assessing glance, and sometimes, when necessary, a quick little nod. Acknowledgment, but not respect. 

It wasn't enough.


	2. Meg

Meg still went for runs. Not for fitness reasons – no matter what she ate or how much she exercised, she never seemed to gain or lose weight. Her muscle tone was frozen, too. No getting faster or stronger for her, barring something unexpected. Unfortunate, but that wasn't the point. It had never been the point. Like a fish needed to swim or a bird needed to fly, Meg needed to move. Claudette didn't get it and Dwight might actually be a bit scared of her, but Jake... Jake understood that kind of drive. At least, he'd backed her up when she made her case to Dwight, and together they'd argued the group's self-proclaimed leader down.

That was making it sound too dramatic, wasn't it? There was hardly even any yelling involved. Dwight was the most upset, and she knew he was just scared for her. And besides, he'd looked awfully pathetic when they teamed up on him. Like a scared puppy. She ended up apologizing later, before things could go out of hand. Jake didn't, but then, Jake didn't like unnecessary words. As long as she was able to run, Meg didn't much care.

At first, she'd stuck to jogging laps around the campfire while Dwight and Claudette cheered her on. As time passed, though, she began ranging wider, leaving her companions in the pool of light. She missed the warmth, the encouragement, the simple presence of other people, but she couldn't stay still and keep sane. So she ran further and further afield, deep into the mist-dark woods. The trees never parted. She never found anything new. Every once in a while, she'd hear the roar of a chainsaw or the sick thunk of a trap snapping closed, but the sounds were distant. Muted. Just whatever was keeping them here trying to scare her. 

Sometimes, the run would end with her being snatched into a trial midstride and brought back to the fire with the others, shaken and shuddering, but other times...

Other times, she ran until her legs burned, the racing of her heart driving her onward. She let go of all her worries, her fears, her increasing certainty that she wasn't going to see her mother again. She ran until every part of Meg Thomas was concentrated in the soles of her aching feet. Only when her head was clean of everything but adrenaline and the cold rush of wind over her ears did she slow to a walk. Good exercise habits were still important, even in this awful place. She always made sure to cool down before she let herself flop to the forest floor. 

Sometimes, she stayed there until a trial snatched her up, or until her energy returned and she rose to make the trip back. Other times, a quiet footstep or the soft rustle of feathers would attract her attention. One brief heart attack later, she'd remember she wasn't the only one who liked venturing into the woods. She'd never seen a crow outside the trials before she started running, but there were more than a few in the forest. Big black birds with huge, heavy-looking beaks and beady red eyes. Meg didn't like them much, but she kept her mouth shut about it. Jake liked the crows enough to coax them down from trees and spend hours sitting quietly with them, and that was good enough for her.

One of these days Claudette was going to stumble across one while foraging and freak out. Dwight, in an attempt to pretend he wasn't equally terrified, would probably try something stupid. If he did – when he did – Meg would back Jake up against him, leader or no.

They all needed an escape from their prison. He'd helped Meg keep hers. It was the least she could do to return the favour.


	3. Claudette

Claudette stumbled through the woods, her breathing coming in harsh bursts. Every step jarred a groan from her throat. In the canopy, branches shifted like snakes. Wood groaned softly as it curved down toward her. Roots rippled under her feet. She couldn't trust the trees. They would trip her if they could. Once she was on the ground, she was finished.

Too loud, she thought wildly. He was going to hear her. But she couldn't stop the flow of pain-soaked noises. Her side was on fire, and not from running.

Pressure. She had to put pressure on the wound. But every time she started to slow down, she heard a scream in the distance, and terror flung her back into action. Claudette wished she knew the others well enough to tell whose agonized wails drifted through the fog. She wished they hadn't been separated at the beginning of the trial. She hadn't caught a single glimpse of another person since this round had begun.

She'd tried to follow the sounds of pain and managed to run straight into a hulking, metal-studded monster. The Trapper, Meg had dubbed him after their first encounter. Claudette didn't know why. The weapon he'd used to slice her open from shoulder to hip was a cleaver. Maybe it was a reference to something. Maybe 'butcher' just felt too cliché.

Was he still following her? She risked a glance over her shoulder. Thick fog swirled sedately behind her, swallowing up her wake. Dark shapes lurked in the distance, shifting like shadows. 

Were they shadows? Just trees? The Trapper? No way of knowing without calling out, and she wouldn't. She couldn't. She was making too much noise already. 

It happened so fast. Her foot came down on something too hard to be a root. Steel sang as metal teeth snapped together. The spikes crunched through skin and muscle until they dug hungrily into bone, her own momentum driving them deeper. Her vision went white as someone screamed. After a moment, she realized it was her voice making that agonized cry. Her jaw snapped shut like – well, like a trap – but she couldn't quite stifle the sobs. 

She looked down, teetering on her one good foot. A bear trap. She'd stepped into a bear trap. And her leg –

Her leg was – 

Claudette blinked furiously, fighting back tears. No time to freak out. She had to focus. If she could get out before the Trapper found her, she might still be able to hide. Her leg looked awful and felt worse. A gentle probe around the jaws of the trap sent utter agony racing through her. She cried out and jerked her hand away.

Fractured. No way of knowing how badly. Even if she got free, would she be able to walk like this?

Ahead of her, something rustled, and her broken leg was suddenly the last thing on her mind. Terror lanced through her like an ice pick being jammed into the back of her skull. She raised her head just as the mist parted around a familiar figure.

Longish black hair. Green jacket. Toolbox.

“Jake?”

He shushed her, staring intently at the shadowed grass between them. Searching for more traps? She hadn't thought of that. It made her feel a bit stupid, but that piercing look was strangely reassuring. It told her he was thinking of a solution to her predicament.

There must not have been any more traps, because Jake turned his gaze to Claudette and walked briskly toward her. She held her breath as he approached, craning her neck to keep him in sight as he crouched down to deal with the trap. Didn't look injured. He'd been luckier than she was. The Trapper might not even know he was there. Jealousy nibbled at her insides for a moment before she shook it off. He'd come to help her. How ungrateful could she be?

The toolbox opened, hinges squeaking softly. Claudette winced at the sound. Dark eyes glanced up, boring into hers. 

“Don't move,” Jake whispered, and set to work.

Metal ground against shattered bone, sending rivulets of blood soaking through her pant leg. She held still as best she could, but she couldn't stop the tears streaming down her face. 

It hurt so much. Oh god, how could it hurt so much?

She lost track of time for a while. It all blurred together, like a drawn-out scream. Finally, with a metallic squeal and an ugly squelch, the jaws of the trap separated. She lurched forward, still sobbing. Jake caught her before she could hit the ground.

He wasn't quite careful enough. She breathed in sharply as his hand touched the gash in her side. Jake fixed his hold immediately and tugged her upright. Standing proved to be a terrible plan. It was all she could not to scream when her bad leg touched the ground. When she looked, she could see the bones poking through the skin. There was no way she'd be able to walk on her own. She was dead weight.

Jake kept glancing around them, but nothing around them moved when he settled her arm around his shoulders. The Trapper was elsewhere. Claudette ended up leaning heavily on her savior while balancing on her good leg. Her everything hurt. They were about as fast as a determined snail. Sad little noises dropped from her tongue whenever either of them moved. But the trap was in pieces and she was alive.

“Just a little longer,” Jake murmured. “Once you're hidden, I'll lead him away. Put yourself back together.”

She nodded, exhausted. “Thank you.”

His reply was almost too soft to make out. “Don't thank me yet.”


	4. Nea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not know graffiti or the associated subcultures. I literally just googled 'graffiti terminology' before writing this. If Nea sounds stupid, it is 100% my fault. I'm sorry.

Nea wished she could honestly say she'd hated the asylum from the moment she laid eyes on it, but truth was, the first time she'd looked up at the crumbling stonework, the only thought in her head had been 'best canvas ever.' Who cared if it was haunted? Ghosts didn't scare her. She was gonna spend all night here with her paints, writing until the sun rose. Her face had hurt from grinning when she slipped over the fence, already planning her best piece yet. It was was gonna be a crazy burn – the kind of art that stung your eyes to look at. Something glorious.

Turned out that Crotus Penn Asylum was one hell of a heaven spot. She didn't get more than a few sprays in before the floor gave out under her. Cue the screaming and the struggling and the falling into darkness. The next thing she knew, she was in the woods, surrounded by confused faces, about to fall into a campfire.

A few minutes later, she was suddenly back in the crumbling asylum, skulking through the ruined halls and trying not to breathe too loudly. Or deeply. This place was rotting. The floor was discoloured in spots and the air was thick with mold and dust. It muffled her footsteps as she prowled forward, searching for... well, whatever she could find. The campers had tried to explain some stuff to her, but none of it made any sense even before they started glowing and panicking about it. Nea'd had just enough time to register that she was glowing too before the campfire vanished and the asylum was back, but... different. Twisted. Like it had been put together based on someone's half-forgotten memories. Trees grew out of the more run-down rooms, their boughs hiding god knew what, and Nea was certain there hadn't been so many open windows before. She'd have used them as a make-shift escape route, except the sills were still lined with broken glass. Kind of a health-hazard, that.

So, goals: find the exit, leave, and lay low until whatever had tried to suck her down an infernal straw gave up. Then she'd... put an anonymous call to the cops or something. Tell 'em someone was keeping prisoners in the woods nearby. She hadn't had a ton of time to observe the campers, but there'd been something tight and desperate in their smiles, and most of them had been bleeding. No way they were here willingly.

First, though, she had to get herself out. Easier said than done when every hallway looked exactly the same. Nea turned another corner and snarled. Dead end. Great. At least she might have found something interesting. A big, square chunk of machinery squatted at the far side of the room. She thought she could see some kind of engine in there, but it wasn't doing anything. All the lights were dark. The device was broken, or at least inactive.

Boring. 

She was about to leave and give retracing her steps a shot when she saw it. A flicker of white. She froze up, her heart thundering in her ears. 

Something – someone – was drifting down the hallway, shrouded in layers of pale linen. The figure had no face. No hair. Nothing. Its feet were floating more than a foot above the ground. 

As she watched, it raised its head, smooth features turned toward her. With a wail, it raised its hand, revealing a bloody hacksaw.

Nope. Not happening. Nea took a running start and hurled herself out the window. She hardly even felt the glass digging into her hands. The ground flew up to meet her. She landed properly, knees bent, but she'd been high enough that her whole skeleton jolted on impact.

Didn't matter. A moment to collect herself and she was racing off into the trees. Too bad adrenaline bursts never lasted long.

It was the roots that got her. She could outrun the devil on tarmac, concrete, or rooftop, but stick her in a forest and things went to shit. The ground was all lumpy and she could swear it shifted under her feet. The better to trip her with.

She was too experienced to throw her arms out to try and save herself. She rolled instead, grunting as her spine met unyielding wood. When she came up in a small, grey clearing, she was no longer alone. Nea didn't recognize the Asian man watching her from the treeline, but he had the same air of bloodied desperation she'd seen at the campfire. Unlike the other campers – and Nea, for that matter – he was actually dressed for night in the woods, though his jacket had taken a bit of a beating. His face was still, expressionless, but his dark eyes were too wide for true calm. Crouched there, blending into the foliage, he reminded her of nothing more than a hunted animal.

“The fuck did you come from?” she asked warily. Not loudly, though. That... thing... might still be in earshot.

He cocked his head instead of answering, scanning her up and down in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with threat evaluation. Nea shivered, uncomfortably aware of her thin tank top and lack of a good knife. Even her gas mask would be good to have right about now.

Just as she was losing the last scraps of her patience, he shook his head, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. One gloved hand jerked in a come-hither gesture. One missing most of the 'and I'll kick your ass' undertones she was used to seeing. That and the lack of expression made it less action hero and more Terminator.

Another wail set the hair on the back of Nea's end quivering.

“Come with me if you want to live, huh?” she muttered, picking herself up. 

“Dramatic,” he murmured back. “Move slowly. They know when you run.”

For once, Nea did as she was told, easing herself into the bushes with all the nonchalant grace she could muster. She set her jaw as thorns and branches clawed at her bare skin. Scratches were nothing. Dirt was nothing. Plants twisting under her fingers were nothing. A few well-placed wiggles and muffled curses later, she was through. No point in combing her hair for twigs or dusting off her jeans. She had a feeling that she'd be grateful for the extra camouflage. Her companion seemed to have the same mindset, though he'd done a better job with whatever dark red he'd used to break up the outline of his jacket. Some kind of paint? If so, she didn't recognize it. She'd ask later.

Another wail, this one further away. She realized she was holding her breath and let it out, disgusted with herself. Nea Karlsson was many things, but she was not a scaredy-cat. Beside her, the man went utterly still until the last of the noise faded away.

“So,” Nea said finally, “who're you supposed to be?”

He side-eyed her. “Jake. You?”

“Mashtyx, A.K.A Nea. I'm kind of up here, y'know?” 

Wow. Not even a flicker of recognition. Jake must've been stuck here a while. At least his gaze didn't linger. He went right back to scanning the treeline, which, probably a good plan. Nea tried to copy him. It was rough going. She could handle crumbled walls, no problem, but the trees kept blocking her line of sight. In contrast, Jake stayed still as a stone, moving as little as possible while taking everything in. The whole effect screamed 'experience.' Whoever he was, he knew the forest. Maybe as well as she knew the city.

So, not the worst guy to run into at a haunted hellhole.

“What do we do now?”

“Escape,” he said. “Find generators. Fix them. Get the gate open. Find a hook, tear it down. Find a key, start looking for a hatch.”

Simple, blunt, and straightforward. Nice. She was about to let loose another slew of questions when he rose to his feet and began picking his way through the wall of green. She shot up and began trotting after him. No way was her main source of info getting away.

“I have more questions, y'know,” she grumbled once she was close enough.

His answer was clipped: “Later.”

Another wail drifted toward them on the chill breeze. Nea shivered, rubbing her bare arms. “Fair enough.”


	5. Laurie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Halloween '78 for maximum Laurie feels. Not sure how well that experiment turned out, but hey, I tried.

Laurie didn't know how she'd ended up in purgatory. Her memory wasn't fuzzy. It was fractured. Bits and pieces of a life lived in dread jabbed into her consciousness like shards of glass. Recalling anything specific meant twisting the blades. Putting the pieces in order meant treading water in a treacherous sea of unsteady thoughts. Her brain was too full. Either that, or it was trying to drown her.

Her life had fallen apart when she was seventeen. How old was she now? When she looked at her hands, she half-expected to see them covered with scars, wrinkles, and other marks of age. Her fingers were too smooth. There was no scar on her shoulder, except when a killer took a blade to her flesh. But that didn't last. Not like the scar that wasn't there had, once upon a time.

When, though? When had she had that scar? Why had it disappeared?

Maybe it vanished when she died. Maybe it was dying that brought her here. How many times had she died, though? 

Once, in a car crash. Twice, falling from a roof. Three times, shot by the cops. 

That couldn't be right.

She couldn't remember how she'd arrived in this hell. She'd just opened her eyes to find herself at the edge of a campfire, with her back to the woods. The flames were ringed with weary strangers, exchanging hushed words and nursing fresh wounds. No one had noticed her appear. None of them made anything of it. Odder things had happened to them than a traumatized blonde girl stepping out of the trees. Like the trials, for instance.

The first time Laurie laid eyes on Michael Myers, something clicked. Ah, she'd thought, so this is why I'm here. For a long moment, she'd just stood there, watching him watch her. Then she'd turned on her heel and ran like the devil was on her heels. The others in the trial with her – Claudette, Dwight, Meg – hadn't known how to conceal themselves from Michael's black eyes. They had been hunted down without mercy. Laurie had survived. 

She started carrying shards of glass with her after that. There were no knives or strategically-placed knitting needles here, but she made do.

The trials continued. She skulked around bear traps, watched for blurry movement, strained her ears for rasping cries and the sound of heavy footsteps. At times, she worked with other survivors, but never for long. A group was an easier target. There was a degree of safety in solitude. Dwight tried to argue with her, but he had no legs to stand on. Half the time, he spent the trial hiding in a locker. Laurie'd become very used to hearing his screams as the killer of the week dragged him out. Sometimes he would be saved, sometimes he wouldn't. 

Laurie never risked herself like that. She'd tasted enough of death already. Both firsthand, and from Michael's leftovers. There was so much of Michael in her. She'd never be free of him.

Another day. Another trial. Laurie found herself standing on a street that should be familiar, looking up at the house that haunted her nightmares. There was something inconsistent about the architecture, some twist to the layout of the neighbourhood that should have made it alien. Try as she might, she couldn't place it. Even in her memories, the house warped in on itself. The jack-o'-lantern on the porch leered at her. She turned away, skulking toward the hedges, and began to search.

Things went well at first. She found a generator, a hook, and two of her fellow targets in quick succession. Nea and Jake didn't have much in common beyond a shared interest in machinery, vandalism, and moving very quietly, but they seemed to get along. She left them tinkering with the wiring and walked down the street. There were more generators to find.

Red and blue light strobed over the neighbourhood as she walked. A police car, empty and suspiciously clean. This wasn't the car Annie's dad had tooled around in for years. On a whim, Laurie peeked through the window and saw the controls were fused in place. She shook her head and stepped back, scanning her surroundings. All the houses looked the same. Same walls, same windows, same garages. The only difference was the order the pieces showed up in. Copy and paste, she remembered her granddaughter telling her. Copy and paste. Voila, endless replicas.

When had she been old enough to have a granddaughter?

She found another generator behind a small house with sealed doors. It sat there, taunting her, right beside a glistening hook. What a horrifying contraption. Metal, wood, and something she could only describe as 'evil' combined to produce a device that inspired dread on sight. So many variants, too. Whatever created these places, it was very familiar with hooks. More familiar than it was with houses. Maybe more familiar than it was with people, too.

A flash of white shifted in her peripheral vision. Laurie's head snapped toward it even as she jerked herself back. That movement saved her life. A knife slashed through the space her head had just been. Above her, a familiar white mask loomed. She took off running.

How he had he gotten so close? The Michael Myers she remembered had not been subtle. She'd always been able to see him coming. And, she thought anxiously, he definitely hadn't been so tall. His next blow almost caught her across the shoulder. She vaulted over the nearest fence, hoping to put some distance between them.

It worked, but not enough. Michael's legs were too long. His sedate walk was fast enough to overtake her eventually. No matter how many fences she leaped or houses she ducked behind, she couldn't lose him. There was no thundering heartbeat to mark his presence, but she could feel his black eyes raking over her skin. She knew it. She knew him. And yet...

What did Michael look like, underneath his mask? Was he blond or brunet? Did he have stubble or was he clean-shaven? 

Did he look through her with the eyes of a confused child? Or did he stare directly at her, mute, willing her to understand something she couldn't help but flinch away from?

She couldn't remember. Maybe she'd never truly known.

Air was getting hard to come by. Her lungs ached. Her legs ached. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her going, and it wasn't enough. Behind her, she could hear Michael's heavy breathing. He was going to catch her. Whether he hooked her or just stabbed her, she was going to die.

No. She wouldn't. It didn't matter whether she was the real Laurie Strode or some patchwork construct. She was going to live. Laurie turned sharply, ducked behind a car, and ran for the Myers house.

Nea had left, but Jake was still there, ankle deep in the generator. He must have been focusing; it took him a moment to pick up her approach, and then another moment to connect the dots. Laurie only caught a glimpse of his face as she passed. It was enough. That look of dawning horror was hard to miss. He lurched into motion behind her, but it was too late. She was through the hedge and into the next yard by the time he began to scream.

Laurie waited there for a while, straining all her senses. Finally, another shout of pain and a burst of awareness informed her that Jake had been hooked. She breathed a sigh of relief and began to crawl away. Michael would have broken the generator Jake was working on, but there were others. Find them, fix them, and she would live.

She was elbow-deep in wiring when a shudder in the air told her Jake had died. She kept working, keeping an eye out for a white mask. Somehow, she made it through the rest of the trial without running into Michael again.

Didn't matter. She could still feel his eyes on her back, even as she burst out the gate to freedom.

Jake returned to the campfire what seemed like hours after the trial ended, wearing the blank expression of a man who still had one foot in the grave. Laurie refused to apologize, flinch, or look away as he shuffled closer to the flames. Still, she found herself inching back, just in case. 

She needn't have bothered. His eyes swept past her, unseeing, so black they shone like mirrors. Laurie held his gaze until he sat down, but he just gazed silently into the fire. He didn't look at her once. Michael had really done a number on him. Something like remorse or sympathy bloomed in her chest. Then she took those useless feelings and crushed them.

Laurie was alive. That was all that mattered.


	6. Ace

This wasn't exactly what Ace had in mind when he last decided to skip town, but he wasn't complaining. Lovely scenery, crackling campfire, lots of new company. Pretty girls eager to be distracted from their sad circumstances and a pretty boy desperately seeking the support of someone more experienced. It had been a while since he did card tricks for the sake of card tricks, but it brought smiles to their weary faces, so he brought out his flashiest techniques. The young blonde with the flinty eyes wasn't interested and the brunette with arms covered in paint kept trying to spill his secrets, but the rest of the camp was entranced. All things considered, Ace was kind of enjoying himself, even after he'd experienced his first few trials. 

There was a phantom ache in his shoulder, yes, and the spots where the enormous black spider legs had speared into his chest still felt cold, but that wasn't anything new. Ace's life had been many things, but 'safe' wasn't on the list. He was no stranger to violence and phantom pains. As long as his hands could shuffle and his wits stayed sharp, Ace Visconti would be just fine.

But cards didn't help much on the killing grounds, so when his hands lit up with an eerie sheen, he sighed and tucked them away. “Sorry, ladies and gentleman. Duty calls.”

Paint-covered Nea growled in disgust, glaring down at her own shining skin. “Something's callin', that's for sure.”

Meek little Claudette lowered her gaze to her glowing hands, already trembling, and clenched them into fists. Ace shot her his best reassuring smile and looked for the fourth member of their little party. Not Meg, who was on her feet and beginning to pace. Not Laurie, who'd gone very still, like a snake getting ready to strike. Not Dwight, who was looking around in much the same manner as Ace, but with less class. That left one person.

“Will I be meeting Jake this time?” Ace asked casually.

Dwight took one final glance around and drooped. “Guess so. Listen – he's kind of a jerk. Don't take it too seriously if he ignores everything you say. Holding grudges makes it a lot harder to get out alive.”

Ace chuckled. “I think he'll find that I'm pretty difficult to ignore.”

The young man pulled a truly hilarious expression of disbelief just as the world dissolved away. Ace was still laughing when he found himself on the other side. 

He was alone, of course, surrounded by the scent of mud and rot. His vision was filled with grey. Grey mud. Grey fencing. The grey corpses of trees. And, in the distance, a huge looming shadow. It seemed the gamemaster had taken them back to the swamp. Ace had seen this place before, but he hadn't managed to commit all the details to memory yet. He wasn't entirely certain that memorizing the layout would help much. The landscape tended to change between trials. Some parts would shuffle themselves around the moment you looked away. Nothing to be done about that, he supposed. It was all just part of the game.

Wood groaned as the wrecked steamer shifted in its muddy confines. Sounded like an invitation. One he had no reason to decline. Ace tucked his hands into his pockets and started ambling toward the boat. Thick mist washed over him, reaching chilly fingers into his clothes. He rubbed his arms, but kept the same careful pace. Running this early in the match wouldn't be wise. Soon enough, he was making his way up a make-shift drawbridge and into the ship proper. A string of tiny lights glimmered down from above. He took a moment to admire the pretty things before he set to work. They were lovely, but the wreck wasn't going to search itself.

This floor didn't have a generator, but it did have a chest. Ace wasted no time prying the lid open and examining its contents. It always took a nail-bitingly long time to go through these glorified storage boxes, but the rewards could be worth it. Case in point, a med-kit with a bottle of styptic agent tucked in it. He grinned down at the container and snapped the case lid closed. 

He'd lingered here long enough. Time to get moving.

No sign of the killer outside, but that didn't mean anything. This place had all the visibility of pea soup. Bastard could be coming up right behind him and he wouldn't know until an inhuman heartbeat started jackhammering at his eardrums. Going to ground would be the smart thing to do, but stealth had never been his strongest suit. Besides, it felt like a waste to keep this shiny new toy for himself. He walked briskly into the fog, med-kit swinging at his side. Time to find a generator. And, if he was lucky, a teammate.

After a few minutes of strolling through the fog and trying not to trip on anything poking through the mud, he picked up the sound of an engine chugging away. Close to completion, if he was any judge. Someone worked fast. He rounded one final corner and there they were: the generator and its technician.

'Technician' really was the right word, in this case, because this boy seemed to know what he was doing. With the others, and often with Ace himself, repairing the machinery came less through understanding and more through sheer intent. In a nightmare world of randomized, patchwork mechanisms, dream logic was king. It almost felt wrong to see someone work with such quiet confidence. All in all, this boy seemed to be rather more prepared than the rest of them. While they had been snatched in T-shirts and jeans, he had managed to bring a scarf, a broken-in waterproof jacket, worn cargo pants, and hiking boots. Gloves, too. Lucky. This must be Jake.

A few more chugs and the generator was online, floodlights shining for all the world to see. The technician gathered up his toolbox and shot to his feet. There was no surprise on his face when he looked up. Ace hadn't really expected there to be. He'd probably been spotted from a mile away. Dark eyes flitted from his hat to his jacket to the package in his hand. Ace grinned and held it up so Probably-Jake could see it better. His thoughtful action got him a quick nod before the kid started walking towards him. A glimmer of recognition tugged at his thoughts when he saw the boy in full, but he set it aside. Ace had met a lot of people in his life – he was bound to run into one of them wherever he went. Time for reminiscing later. 

Probably-Jake made a short gesture and pointed to the north-east: this way. Then he started off at a brisk walking pace, peering into the murk. Ace bobbed his head agreeably and followed suit. Something like confidence lurked under every movement the kid made, the kind of certainty that was born of knowing what the hell you were doing. It made Ace inclined to shut up and pay attention. As a newcomer to the card table should heed the advice of a seasoned gambler, an old man in damask and a ball cap should heed the advice of the kid dressed to survive. Maybe he'd even learn something in the bargain. 

Really, Ace thought cheerily, this whole 'trapped in a hellish nether realm' debacle could be going a lot worse.


	7. Bill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill Overbeck is a hard man to write. Also, why isn't there a Left 4 Dead 3 yet?

When he breathed his last, Bill had been half-expecting to wake up back in Vietnam. Failing that, the hospital. After the army, he'd spent most of his life drifting through a dull, grey fog. Those weeks of fighting for his life – fighting to keep his team alive – were too sharp and vivid to be real. He had guns. He had an enemy. And that enemy never stopped.

A million pairs of fever-bright eyes staring out of brutalized faces. The roar of gunfire echoing through the empty city. Navigating by witch sobbing and hunter screams. Having a team again. It all felt like wish fulfillment. The kind of thing a tired old soldier would dream up to make his last days pass quicker. 

His team. Louis. Francis. Zoey. As the ground shook beneath the approaching tanks, he'd been thinking of them. They'd better make it out of here alive, because he sure as hell wasn't going to.

Dying didn't feel like waking up. Or falling asleep, for that matter. If he had to use a metaphor, he'd compare it to diving into deep water. Same encroaching darkness, same lightheadedness, same choking pressure on the lungs. Difference was how long it took. You could hold your breath underwater for upwards of three minutes, if you trained. Get caught under a horde of tanks? Be lucky if you lasted a few seconds.

Bill was lucky, he supposed. He didn't die instantly. Had time for one last smoke. Then it was pain, the wet smack of injured flesh on metal, and the rumble of the mammoth zombies' footsteps

Always knew this old body wasn't gonna make it. But his team was still on the bridge. They made it out, and he died smiling. That was the most an old man could ask for.

He sank into the cold, choking darkness, and the darkness turned to look at him.

Bill Overbeck was a dead man. Even before the zombie apocalypse hit, he had a lot of experience with the dead and dying. He knew how much of a beating the human body could take before it just broke. Broken spine, ruptured organs, internal bleeding. Ain't no way he could've survived that. But his eyes stayed open and his brain kept working, even as the pain, the seaside air, and the cold of death drained away. 

The darkness swallowed everything. Then it spat him out. 

He woke with the scent of smoke and pine thick in his nostrils. His gun was gone. So were all the aches he'd picked up over the last few weeks – scratches, bruises, bites, a couple bones he was sure were broken but none of the group knew how to treat. The dizziness, numbness, and shakes from the painkillers had buggered off as well. He felt better than he had in years. But he was in the woods, in a place he didn't recognize, and he was pretty damn sure he'd just died.

That settled it. Hell was a forest, deep and dark, filled with fog that clung to gnarled branches like spiderwebs. It was roots shifting and coiling under his feet like snakes, the chilling absence of sound, and a million little red eyes gleaming from the canopy. Bill couldn't help but feel disappointed in the devil's lack of creativity. 

Eh, whatever. He still had his smokes, and his old eyes could barely make out a fire burning in the distance. Might as well check it out.

It was a campfire he'd seen flickering through the trees. A young couple sat around it, bloodied and silent. The boy had on a pair of stupid-looking glasses and was in the process of chewing his lip to shreds; the girl had her knees hugged to her chest and a small collection of plants piled beside her. Neither looked much older than Zoey. Their situational awareness was awful. Bill was practically on top of them by the time they noticed he was there. The girl jerked back, spilling her plants as she scrambled to her feet. The boy rose a bit slower. If she was ready to bolt, then he was ready to negotiate.

“H-hello there. Sir. I don't suppose you know where we are?”

Bill grunted. “If it's Hell, it's a boring one.”

The boy chuckled wearily. “You're not far off. Um, I'm Dwight, and this is Claudette. There's more of us, but they're... out at the moment. You want to sit down?”

A quick inspection of the campsite revealed no weapons more advanced than rocks and sticks. Claudette was clearly scared shitless, but Bill didn't get the sense she was scared of him in particular. Under his bright smile, Dwight had the same sort of fear in his eyes. If Bill was back in Fairfield, he wouldn't trust these two for a minute. But he'd been walking for a damn long time in those woods. And really, he didn't have any better ideas.

He took a seat beside the fire with a soft groan. “Fine. Either of you try something, we're gonna have a problem.”

Dwight laughed again and settled back in his spot. “Don't worry about us. It's not the humans you've got to watch out for.”

The conversation that followed was grade A nonsense. Bill had heard people hopped on pain medication tell stories that sounded less crazy. But Bill had also lived through a zombie apocalypse – most of it, anyway – so he kept his disbelief to himself. If the kids were nuts or lying, no harm in keeping quiet. If they were telling the truth, he'd be glad he'd listened. But this story sounded fake as all get-out. Invincible killers straight out of a slasher movie? A world that reshaped itself around you? Four people at a time stuck in a death match where the only way to escape was to stick your hands in live machinery and fiddle around? If these were demons building him a personalized hell, they were doing a shit job of hiding it. 

“Say I believe you. When does this horseshit start up?”

Claudette had been slowly relaxing. Finally, she spoke up. “Technically, it already has. There's four in a trial right now. I think it's just us and Jake outside.”

“Jake?”

Dwight frowned. “He's... one of the first guys to end up here with us. Showed up at the same time we did. Really not fond of people. Keeps wandering off into the woods without telling us.”

“He's nice if you give him his space, though,” Claudette added. “Saved me more than once in the trials.”

That comment got her a sigh from Dwight, but he didn't try and correct her. Some level of resentment there, probably, but not enough to seriously impact his judgement. For her part, Claudette didn't try and claim their phantom fourth man wasn't an avoidant jackass. If Dwight was the leader of this little group, Claudette was the peacemaker, and Jake sounded like the kind of person you had to work around.

Bill took a long drag off his cigarette and kept his thoughts to himself. “So, who else is stuck in here?”

As it turns out, there was no need for further introductions – one moment it was just him and the two kids at the campfire, the next, four more shapes stumbled out of the shadows. Three girls, blond, brunette, redhead, and one older man, his hair whiter than Bill's. Each and every one looked right through him with huge empty eyes. He knew that look. It was a constant companion through the outbreak of the Green Flu. Before that, it had lived in the mirror, in his memories, in the darkness behind his eyes.

Dwight stood up in a hurry. “How did it go?”

A tremor went through the new arrivals. They didn't speak. Drifting closer to the flames seemed like all they could manage right now. One of them, the little blonde, had her hand wrapped around a shard of jagged glass. It was no machine gun, but it was the closest thing to a proper weapon Bill had seen since he got here. He cautiously approved.

“Badly,” the dark haired girl said at last, rolling the words around in her mouth like pebbles, tasting them. “New chick's a hungry one.”

“Hungry?” Bill's head snapped toward her. She blinked at him. Hadn't even realized he was there, had she? “I'm gonna have to ask you to clarify.”

She stayed quiet, just looking at him. Through him. Like she'd seen a ghost, or like she was a ghost – one of them had to be the ghost in this equation, but she wasn't sure who. Bill was all set to demand answers when there was a sharp intake of breath to his right. The redhead had been clawing mud out of her braids. Now she stood stock still, frozen, watching an eerie, colourless glow play over her skin. 

Well, shit. That didn't look natural at all. Wasn't good, either, judging by the fresh flare of panic in her eyes. Closer to him, Claudette let out a muffled sob. She was glowing too. Dwight wasn't, but he looked at Bill with the same kind of pained horror. Bill looked down to find his hands shining. Like moonlight on water. Like a lit cigarette.

Figured, he thought, and clenched them into fists. Time to see what hell had to offer.

No more time to talk. Once again, the darkness rose up and swallowed him. When he bobbed back up to the surface, he found himself knee deep in bog. Fog closed in on him from all sides. Everything smelled like rot. When he started walking, the swamp sucked at his feet, writhing like a swarm of leeches. It was miserable, but it was a familiar kind of miserable. Or it should've been, anyway. There was something about the movement of the mist and the shadows of the trees that rubbed him the wrong way.

Rotten trees, rotten fences, rotten shacks. Not a single solid structure in sight, and still he couldn't see a damn thing. No movement. No sounds. No helpfully placed weaponry. Bill grumbled under his breath and kept walking. Had to be something around here. One of those generators the kids had mentioned, maybe. Killed fixing one generator so he could spend the rest of his afterlife fixing more. Wouldn't that be a laugh?

Finally, the mist parted just enough to let a slim, dark shape through. A moment later, a pair of flat red eyes were staring right at him. Bill dove behind the nearest tree on instinct, grabbing for a gun he didn't have. The eyes stared a moment longer before whatever was attached let out a loud croak and began to flap its wings. 

It was a bird. A bird sitting on someone's shoulder. Bill bit back a torrent of curses and tried to calm his racing heart.

“Hush,” someone whispered. A shadowy hand reached up to stroke the bird until it settled, clicking its heavy beak.

The pair drew closer, moving almost silently even in the muck. Impressive, that. As they got close enough for Bill to see them properly, he realized the bird itself was equally impressive. Was that a crow? Nah. Crows didn't get that big, and they were a hell of a lot less ugly. Whatever this critter was, it seemed to like being petted. The boy it was with made for a less intimidating sight, but that was hardly his fault. It'd be damn hard to live up to a companion like that.

He did have one thing up on the rest of the group Bill had seen: the new kid looked like he was actually dressed for a brisk walk in the swamp. No army gear, but that jacket looked good, even with the holes in it. Waterproof cargo, too. Bill couldn't see the kid's boots through the muck, but he was willing to bet they were heavy-duty. More importantly, he moved like he knew what he was doing. Definitely had wilderness experience. You couldn't just grab a city boy and expect him not to blunder through mud. God knew Francis, Louis, and Zoey had done a shit job of it.

Something in his chest twinged. Or maybe it was his back. Either way, that was the only reason he stayed still long enough for the kid to spot him. Jake – it pretty much had to be Jake – stopped in his tracks. His eyes were dark. Wary. Human.

“New?” Jake asked, lips barely moving.

Bill nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Careful,” the boy said softly. “Generators in the big shacks. Get 'em all fixed, open the gates, get out. Don't get hooked.”

“Hooked?”

A quick gesture at something looming through the fog. Bill had thought it was another dead tree, but when he squinted, he could make out the gleam of metal.

“They'll hook you if they catch you.”

Bill shook his head, the beginnings of a headache making themselves known. “Girl said something back at the campfire. Mentioned the 'new chick' being 'hungry.' Is there any chance of me running headfirst into a zombie horde?”

The corner of Jake's mouth quirked upward. “Haven't run into one of those yet. You're an optimist, I'll grant you that.”

It was stupid. He didn't even sound like Zoey when he said it. Even so, it took Bill a few seconds to start breathing again. Those dark eyes didn't linger on him – too busy scanning the treeline, good job, excellent situational awareness – but there was a subtle discomfort in the way Jake held himself that hadn't been there before. The boy might not know what was going through Bill's head, but he clearly had an inkling. Just as clearly, he had no intention of talking about it.

Good man.

“Split up or group?” Bill asked, pointedly ignoring the faint hitch in his voice.

“Split up,” Jake replied. “Harder to hide in groups. Be careful,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He was already backing away.

Bill waved him off. “Try not to die.”

Time he got moving himself.

Moving through the swamp was an exercise in frustration, but so were most things in life. Bill kept at it, glaring at the things slithering through the muck. Couldn't see them, but he knew they were there – they kept brushing against his feet. Felt like eels. Or slimy clumps of seaweed. Roots, maybe, if they'd gone to rot. As long as he didn't step on them, it didn't matter what they were.

He found his first generator out there in the mud, impossibly clean given its surroundings. Damn thing was hardly even rusty. More than that, it looked... off. Bill knew generators. He'd died near a generator. He knew what a generator was supposed to be like. This was less a piece of complex machinery and more a lump of metal plastic moulded into approximately the right shape. If human hands anything to do with this thing's construction, Bill would eat it.

He poked it. Sparks began to fly from its exposed innards. Great.

Didn't seem to matter whether he actually tried to fix it or just drummed his fingers on the casing. The generator repaired itself at a steady rate either way. The closer to done it got, the louder the process became, and the more time Bill spent glaring suspiciously into the fog. Just as the light began to flicker, a strangled scream wound through the heavy air. He swore and threw himself backward, away from the noise and the machinery both. The trees seemed to shrink back as he scrambled toward them. He'd barely gotten himself settled when something lurched through the mist. 

For the second time today, Bill reached for a gun he didn't have. The shape was a witch. Had to be. But he'd never seen a witch so desiccated. She looked like a mummy left rotting in a bog somewhere, shrivelled up and grey. Her teeth were longer than his little finger. 

Thank god Francis wasn't here to see this. If he caught a glimpse of this thing, he'd never drop his vampire horseshit.

The witch craned her neck like a bird, tilting her head back and forth. Satisfied, she stepped forward, revealing another shape slung over her shoulder. No, not a shape – a person. In a familiar green jacket. Jake was struggling, but not hard. When she walked past, Bill caught a glimpse of his face and realized why. Half the boy's head was mud-encrusted and dripping blood. She'd damn near cracked his skull open. It was a wonder he could move at all.

If he had a gun, Bill wouldn't have thought twice about taking her on. But his hands were infuriatingly, agonizingly empty, and he had no idea how durable that thing was meant to be. She seemed to be going somewhere, though, and she didn't know where he was. He waited until she was safely past before he began to follow. 

Jake's struggles got more coordinated as time passed, but not enough. Bill saw the hook first, huge and glistening. The witch must've seen it next, because she bared all her teeth in a bestial grin. She took one arm – enormous, stretched out, claws like a hunter – and hauled the body off her shoulder. Jake fought. Made no difference. In one smooth movement, she stabbed the hook through his shoulder.

He screamed again, louder this time. The witch snuffled at the hole for a moment she let him go. When she turned away, her mouth was stained red. A long black tongue slithered over the papery remains of her lips.

Fucking figured. Bill's first day in this hell and he found the one zombie that actually ate people instead of just killing them for fun.

There was one stroke of luck in this mess – the witch didn't look back. She headed right back out into the sea of mud to continue the hunt. Bill stayed in the shadows for a few seconds longer, just to make sure she was gone. Then he broke cover and headed to the hook.

Stupid idea. The witch might not be gone. He still had no idea where he was or what he was doing. But the kid had tried to help him. More than that, Jake had reminded him of Zoey. If this was a mistake, Bill could regret it later. Right now, he reached up to where the boy hung like a gristly wind chime and levered Jake up off the hook. He collapsed the second Bill set him down, blinking with hazy eyes. A noise like a dying thing crawled from his throat.

“On your feet,” Bill said gruffly. “No one gets left behind.”


	8. Min

Feng Min's first impression of her fellow players could be summed up in three letters: NPC. In her defence, she was super hungover when she got here. Didn't even notice the campfire – just stumbled deeper into the woods until she got dumped into her first trial. Whatever. Even if she had picked up on the faint light filtering through the trees, she wouldn't have gone to join their little survivor club. Team fights weren't her style.

Decisiveness. Camouflage. Discipline. Those were the traits which kept her alive as she soloed trials. Escort missions, rescue missions – that was the shit which got you killed. No thanks. If you wanted to live, you had to win. If you wanted to win, you had to live. Not exactly hard to wrap your head around. She didn't understand why so many players had trouble with it.

“This isn't a game!” Dwight had shouted after one trial, louder than she'd ever heard him before. His face was red. Blood-splatter. Also, flushed with rage. 

Min had stared back at him, cool as ice, and said nothing. No point in feeding the trolls. If he'd calm down and think about this rationally, he'd see her strategy. Yeah, sure, he'd still be mad, but it'd be more 'you fucking griefer' and less 'blah blah you left me and my friends to die.' He took things way too personally. They all did. Sitting pretty up on their high horses, like they wouldn't abandon her as just quickly.

Except Laurie. Laurie didn't mess around. There was one solo player Min didn't grief. Not after the first time the blonde had PKed her without hesitation. This might be a game, but it was a death game. When she lingered on those memories – the emptiness of Laurie's ruthless blue eyes, sharp animal terror as the Hag's teeth dug into the meat of her arm, the world darkening as the Nurse's hands tightened around her throat – she could see why the others were so upset about this. Dying sucked.

Thing was, she came back. Seconds after her last breath rattled out of her, minutes after her veins ran dry, hours after a giant freaking spider leg jammed itself through her torso. Time might be fluid here, but she always came back, shaking, shuddering, alive. A bit to settle back into the fragile limits of her body and Shining Lion returned, riding high on an incomparable adrenaline rush. Just like that, all her fear fell away, leaving nothing but cold, gleeful clarity. She'd spent so much time wishing she could just treat RL like a game. Now she could. It wasn't her fault no one else had put the pieces together.

Okay, maybe it was. She hadn't exactly gone out of her way to explain herself. So what? She wasn't a walking tutorial. Besides, she knew how this sort of game worked. The others could put on a show of cooperation all they wanted, but the truth was, there could only be one winner. The fastest, strongest, more ruthless, all-around best player. In other words, Feng Min.

She'd come so damn far from the girl who'd woken up with alcohol bitter on her tongue and moss pressed against her cheek. The girl who'd fallen asleep in some alley with the rest of the trash and opened her eyes in a whole new world. A nightmare, Meg had called it once, and she wasn't wrong. She just wasn't looking at it right. They were all living on the edge of a game over. Nothing could make Min feel more alive.

Bill felt the same way, she thought, but Bill wasn't playing to win. He was a PvPer to the core. Never met a fight he didn't like. Oh, sure, he went out of his way to help his teammates when they were in trouble, but it wasn't compassion or pity that made him face off against the killers. He just liked the thrill. No way he was gonna win with a game plan like that, but somehow Min didn't think he cared. Dwight did, but Dwight cared too much. He had so many emotions they leaked out of him and slopped onto anyone nearby. Some people – read, shy little Claudette and loose cannon Meg – did well in a sheltered environment like that. Min couldn't stand it. Losing your edge was the first step to losing your life. Even total noobs knew that.

Ace didn't. But then, Ace was clearly a casual. He played for fun and nothing else, which made him difficult to deal with. Min didn't appreciate his tendency to find the best loot and hold onto it until he died or ran into someone he liked. Mostly because he didn't like her much. 

So she'd lured him into traps a few dozen times! Get good or get over it. Honestly, some people.

Laurie was just as bad, but in the opposite direction. Min couldn't even go near the girl without her grabbing something sharp. Like Min even wanted to mess with that psycho after Laurie had stabbed her in the gut, twisted, and left her to bleed out. When Min had respawned, she'd learned that the tiny blonde made a habit of physically attacking the killers and sometimes even got them to flinch, which was a lot more impressive than it sounded. They all had invulnerability activated. Min had kicked the Trapper in the head once and got no reaction. So yeah, Laurie? Stone cold psycho. Thank god she only played to survive and had zero interest in racking up scores. 

Nea, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of stealing peoples' generators and distracting the killers just long enough to hurl herself out a second story window while she still had their attention, ruining every chase scene Min tried to set up. There were a lot of terrible things Min wanted to do to Nea. And guess what? The game let her do them! There was something incredibly thrilling about being able to trip someone off a roof or shove them down a flight of stairs, and Nea, for all her wiry agility, didn't have the muscle mass to fight off Min and her years of compulsory military training. The worst she could do was sabotage Min's generators – stupid – or throw things from a distance – ineffective. Mostly, she just spammed Min with verbal abuse.

“The fuck you doing? Who cares about points? We're going to die if you don't get that thing open!”

“You stupid idiot, you're going to us all killed!”

“Fuck you! You should've been a killer!”

Whatever. Years of experience in the online arena had let Min shrug off the real shit – doxx threats, death threats, rape threats, etc. Sticks and stones might break her bones, but nothing Nea threw at her would ever stick. Since Min had arrived in this new battleground, only one person had made her pause with words alone.

Min hated to agree with Dwight about anything, but she was on the same page as him regarding the group's antisocial woodsman saboteur. She knew Jake's type. Not interested in co-op play like Dwight, pvp like Bill, or even solo questing like Laurie. No time for sharing about himself or making friends. Prone to vanishing into the dark corners of the map on his own, leaving a trail of fixed generators and broken equipment in his wake. Always popping up where you least expected or wanted to find him. His tactics were almost the same as hers. If he had a bit more killer instinct, Min might have some competition for number one. 

But Jake didn't play to win, or even to survive. He played to push his limits. She saw it in his wild eyes while he watched the killers, how steady he was when he approached the demon-eyed crows, the way he pushed himself to break more, save more, do more. This wasn't a fight to him. Everyone else was struggling to adapt and overcome and he was off in the woods, studying NPCs and objects like a damn lore fiend.

“Gaming isn't meditation,” she snapped at him once. “You're never gonna win like this.”

She'd stumbled across him sitting cross-legged in the forest, covered in crows. The birds swivelled their little heads and cawed like sirens when they saw her. Some of them even flapped. None of them flew away.

He'd looked at her with his dead black stare, surrounded by a sea of dark feathers and glistening red eyes. When he spoke, his voice was so soft she had to strain her ears to make it out.

“This isn't something you can win.”

Every time she thought about those words, her vision went red. She wanted to scream, curse him out, physically fight him. She had done none of that. She'd just stood there, mouth open like an idiot, watching as he stood up – slowly, so as not to disturb the birds – and melted back into the trees. Her brain, her weapon, her only trustworthy ally, had been completely useless. Instead of thinking about strengths, weaknesses, attack plans, revenge, it kept playing her deaths on repeat. 

How pathetic she'd felt. How helpless. How scared. 

How none of that had changed, even if she made it out of a trial alive.

Finally, she'd gritted her teeth and stalked in the opposite direction. Bullshit, she'd told herself. You can win anything. He was the idiot for not understanding that. But it was better for her if Jake didn't get serious. Assuming he was even capable of playing for real. 

Not everyone could be a winner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I like Feng Min, she's got a really compelling backstory and motive.  
> Also Me: I'm gonna make her an awful person.


	9. David King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you thought this was over! Nope. Still going, I promise!
> 
> David's English slang is pain. If you pay attention, you can spot the exact moment I gave up.

David wasn't in the habit of getting to know people. In his experience, people were mostly shite. He'd picked up that view over thirty years of dealing with gits, twats, tossers, and cowards, and it'd take more than being sucked into hell to break him of it. Especially when Dwight still spent half his time in lockers, Ace kept walking headlong into ambushes, and Laurie wouldn't hesitate to stab some poor bastard and leave them bleeding so she could get away. Lots of moxie in that one. Would've been fun to face her in the ring. Much less enjoyable to try and keep track of her in the forest, one hand clamped around his side to keep the blood from dripping. Bird had gone and vanished by the time he'd taken two steps.

Right then. Nothing to do but keep moving. Stab wound was no excuse to loiter around doing nothing. He was getting used to being injured all the time, anyhow. Feathers rustled in the branches above him as he crept forward, each step sending another jolt of pain through his ribs. It was slow going, but the crows weren't squawking yet. With luck, whatever had been chasing Laurie wouldn't know where he was. On the other hand, he didn't know where it was, either. Unfortunate, that.

A shadow moved. He swung himself toward it, fists raised. It stepped back, dodging his blow in a move that relied on speed and experience rather than training. Still worked bloody well. He caught a glimpse of narrow black eyes and flyaway hair as he stumbled past. Small frame, both arms the same size, feet touching the ground.

“That you, Jake?” he rasped. The sudden movement had opened up his wound again. When he put his hand back on top it, his shirt was slippery with blood.

Pretty boy nodded and raised his hands carefully. One of them was occupied. David squinted at the box Jake was holding for a moment, then grinned. Med-kit, hell yeah.

“Give,” he ordered.

Jake paused for a moment, listening, before he padded into David's space. His eyes didn't stay still. They flicked back and forth as he worked. Every couple seconds, he'd stop and listen again. Paranoia or experience – whatever it was, it put David on edge. Reminded him that, for the moment at least, he was far from the scariest thing in these woods. 

Bandages. Painkillers. Some weird-ass syringe thing David still didn't have a name for. Few minutes of that and he could breath properly again. He nodded his thanks and stepped forward. The boy shied back immediately, dodging an outstretched arm like a pro.

David laughed, baring too many teeth. “Jumpy, aren't you?”

He wasn't surprised. He'd met blokes like Jake before. Gentle and desperate, too soft and too simple for the civilized world. Usually, they were lined up on street corners and under bridges, dazed and feverish, chasing some inhuman freedom through drugs and booze. In that, at least, Jake was different. Oh, his eyes still burned. But the light was less like fever and more like a torch. Here, in the darkness, he knew who he was and what he was about. Maybe this place was all he'd ever wanted. Who fucking knew. It was a good look on him, anyhow.

In another time, another place, David might've taken offence. Might've picked a fight. Wouldn't have been a good one, not with Jake's lack of solid fighting background, but it could've been fun to beat him down. Pretty things always looked better with a face full of blood. In this one, he waited until Jake's eyes left him, and then clapped the kid suddenly on the back. Loud, dangerous, stupid. The tremor that went through Jake's entire body was worth it.

“Thanks,” David said, and started off in another direction. “Keep yourself alive.”

There were eyes on him as he left, sharp and naive as any alley cat. Wary. Confused. Somewhere in the transition from rage to lust to gratitude, Jake had gone and gotten himself lost. David whistled softly to himself, a lure for anything that might be nearby, while a sly grin played over his face. Wild things never did understand people. That was what opened them up to be tamed.


	10. Quentin

Quentin had no idea what to do for the man crouched beside him, white-faced and wheezing for breath. Huge, jagged claw marks raked down Jake's side. His jacket was shredded. Red oozed steadily through his fingers. It was difficult to look at him for more than a few seconds at a time. The air was filled with blood. Quentin tried not to breathe too deeply. It didn't seem to bother Jake at all, but then, Jake had bigger problems. 

They needed a med-kit. They didn't have a med-kit.

“We can't stay here.” His voice didn't sound real anymore. How long had he been awake? It must be years, now. 

Jake bowed his head, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “Give me a minute.”

'A minute' stretched on. And on. And on. Quentin waited patiently, tracing the stack of rusty pipes in front of them with his eyes. If he looked at them straight-on, they swayed and stretched like toffee. If he was looking at them, he didn't have to wonder how bad Jake's injuries were. The windbreaker did a good job of obscuring things. Maybe he should've tried to take it off, but Jake had clamped both hands over the wound. Pressure was supposed to be good for bleeding, right? Even so, it hadn't stopped. 

They really should start moving. The ghost of Freddy Kreuger was wandering through the ghost of Badham Preschool and he'd already found a target. Quentin's first reaction when he found Jake sleepwalking down a corridor had been little more than an incoherent shriek. For a moment, he'd seen Freddy's ruined face at the far end of the hall. He'd barely been able to wake Jake in time to start dragging him away. The second time had been harder. They'd barely gotten away. He probably wouldn't succeed a third time. 

Dropping a pallet or going out a window really shouldn't delay a dream. But Quentin had just about given up on demanding this world make sense. It was a dream itself, after all. Whatever the spider-thing wanted, it got.

Its mind had been so cold. So old. Soaked in fear not its own.

He flinched away from those memories and refocused on the pipes. Beside him, Jake had gone quiet. The shuddering breaths had stopped. 

“Jake?” Quentin reached out, slow, the air pressing in on him like molasses. He touched Jake's shoulder. Nothing. “Jake, c'mon. We gotta get up.”

Was he asleep again? Shit. Quentin grabbed slack shoulders and turned Jake around, ignoring the sticky bloodstains under his fingers. Jake's face was tight and still, but his eyes were open.

“Jake?”

Quentin hadn't had much time to get acquainted with the other survivors. Just long enough to establish that no, they weren't dreaming, and no, they didn't know who Freddy was. They might be apparitions of some kind, created by the spider-thing to populate its dreamscape. If so, it understood people a lot more than it understood, say, architecture. In the short time they'd been running for their lives together, he'd seen a lot of expressions flicker through Jake's dark eyes. Fear. Pain. Resolution. Desperation. Resignation.

Regardless of his true nature, Jake had been alive. He wasn't any longer.

His head lolled back, glazed eyes staring lifelessly upward. Quentin forced himself to keep breathing and slowly set Jake – the body – _Jake_ – back to rest against the wall. It – he – didn't sit quite straight. Crooked shoulders and sprawling limbs made him look carelessly relaxed.

It didn't seem right to leave him like this. But there wasn't anything Quentin could do. Besides, he'd already touched a dead body by accident today. The idea of doing it again, on purpose, make him want to scream.

Someone had died under his watch. It was the most peaceful death he'd seen.

He had to get moving.

“I'm sorry,” Quentin murmured, forcing himself to his feet. “I couldn't save you.”

A flash of darkness appeared in the corner of his eye as he turned away. The spider-thing descended from the ceiling, ready to claim another victim. It sank its talons into Jake's chest almost delicately. He lit up with gold, flickered once, and was gone.

In the distance, Quentin could just barely make out the haunting tune of a lullaby.

_“One, two, Freddy's coming for you...”_


End file.
